Interactive Shop Window

Digitally-controlled responsive shop window

Designed by Sensing Places’s Flavia Sparacino, the Interactive Shop Window is an installation driven by the movement of people walking in the street. The setup includes a large and bright LCD (or LED) display placed inside the shop window facing outside towards the street. A wide-angle video camera connected to computer-running custom-vision software is used to track the passage of people in the street. The system detects pedestrian presence, speed, and distance from the window.

The interactive content of the shop window is designed according to the specific needs of the shop, the merchandise on sale, or the communication strategy of the vendor. Sensing Places’s most recent installation features responsive portraits, which are short video loops of people portrayed in various expressions. The portraits are responsive to passersby: the way in which pedestrians walk in front of the window causes a change in mood of the portrait, determining a switch of expression from neutral to happy, or from boredom to surprise, scorn, love, anger, etc.